Former Obama aides say agreement risks failure to secure safeguards and that it will leave the Islamic Republic as a ‘nuclear threshold state’.

By Yitzhak Benhorin, YNET

Obama’s first term, warned on Wednesday that a deal on curbing Iran’s nuclear program was at risk of failing to provide adequate safeguards.

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) with Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Switzerland during the last round of talks (Photo: AP)

In an open letter, the group of former US officials and foreign policy experts cautioned that an Iran nuclear deal would “fall short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a ‘good’ agreement” unless it included a tougher line on United Nations nuclear inspections and conditions for sanctions relief.
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JUNE 24, 2015

Below is a sharp critique of a recent New York Times editorial, posted by renowned investigative journalist Richard Behar on Facebook. 

Does the New York Times editorial board want Israel to take it seriously? Is the board’s distaste for the country so strong that it has no interest in using the newspaper’s well-earned power and influence to make a real impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Take Tuesday’s editorial, which is among the kinds of low-hanging fruit that;Gary Weissand I will be picking and exposing once the funds are in place for our Mideast Reporter—a multimedia, multilingual investigative reporting enterprise. For now, some batting practice…

The Times editorial concludes: “…Israel has a duty, and should have the desire, to adjust its military policies to avoid civilian casualties and hold those who failed to do so accountable.”
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by William A. Jacobson, Legal Insurrection

Thank the American Studies Association for anti-boycott trade legislation passed today.

The anti-Israel activists employed as professors who led the fight at the American Studies Association to pass the academic boycott of Israel in December 2013, have been patting themselves on the back ever since.

Forget that over 250 university presidents and the major academic organizations condemned the move as a gross violation of academic freedom.  Even the NY Times called the ASA a “pariah.”
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Ahead of Debate on Gaza Report, UN Watch Releases Evidence of Systematic Bias at UN’s Top Rights Body

GENEVA, June 25, 2015 – In the nine years of its existence, the UN Human Rights Council has condemned Israel more times than the rest of the world combined, revealed UN Watch today, ahead of a new report to be released by the Geneva-based NGO that documents endemic selectivity and politicization at the world body.The outcome resolution for the latest Gaza report, to be introduced at the UNHRC this week by the Palestinians together with the Arab and Islamic states, will condemn Israel exclusively, and will mark the 62nd resolution targeting Israel since the new and improved Council was created in 2006 — while the total of all other UNHRC condemnatory resolutions for the rest of the world amounts to 55, with most of the worst violators given a free pass, if not a seat on the council itself. Read more…

IF LIBERAL JEWS ARE SO SMART, WHY ARE THEY SO DUMB?

Caroline Glick, JPOST [Originally posted in October 2011]

[..] WITH THE overwhelming data showing that throughout the Arab world there is strong support for organizations and regimes which advocate the genocide of world Jewry, the American Jewish community could have been expected to devote the majority of its attention and resources to exposing and combating this existential threat. Just as the American Jewish community dedicated itself in the past to causes such as the liberation of Soviet Jewry and fighting neo-Nazi groups in the US and throughout the world, it could have been expected that from the Anti-Defamation League to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, that major American Jewish groups would be using the financial and human resources at their disposal to defend against this violent, genocidal hatred.
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Economist Economic Unit

June 23 — Two large Israeli firms were bought by Chinese buyers in June, underscoring growing trade and investment ties between the two countries. Hong Kong’s XIO Group agreed to buy an Israel medical-laser manufacturer, Lumenis, for US$510m, and Fosun Group agreed to buy 52% of Phoenix, Israel’s fourth-largest insurer, for around US$470m.

Analysis
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Center for Security Policy

According to a new nationwide online survey of 600 Muslims living in the United States, significant minorities embrace supremacist notions that could pose a threat to America’s security and its constitutional form of government.

The numbers of potential jihadists among the majority of Muslims who appear not to be sympathetic to such notions raise a number of public policy choices that warrant careful consideration and urgent debate, including: the necessity for enhanced surveillance of Muslim communities; refugee resettlement, asylum and other immigration programs that are swelling their numbers and density; and the viability of so-called “countering violent extremism” initiatives that are supposed to stymie radicalization within those communities.
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T. Belman. Although the US defended our “right to self-defense” it undermined it by questioning our use of force and “expressed deep concern about the civilians in Gaza that were in harm’s way [during the war] and urged all parties to do everything they could to protect innocent civilians who were essentially caught in the crossfire of this conflict”.

The US is doing everything they can to characterize this as a police action between us and Hamas. Anything but a war which has different rules of conduct. They refuse to see this as a war between the enemy entity Gaza and Israel. They ignore that Hamas was elected by the people and the people support their armed resistence. Why shouldn’t they suffer for it. The same thinking goes for rebuilding Gaza. G-d forbid the Gazans should pay the price. Unfortunately Israel is similarly at fault.

By AP, TOI

The UN report into possible war crimes in last summer’s Gaza conflict should not be taken to the Security Council or used in other United Nations work, the US said Tuesday, challenging the fairness of the Human Rights Council that commissioned the inquiry.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said Washington viewed the UNHRC as having a “clear bias” against Israel, tarnishing the report released Monday, which accused both Israel and Palestinian militants of possible war crimes during a 50-day conflict last summer.
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[T. Belman. I don’t understand why it is as high as it is.]

Less than half of Israelis think US president doing a good job, compared to 71% the year before; 80% disapprove of his Iran policy

By Avi Lewis, TOI

Israelis have increasingly lost faith in US President Barack Obama, with the commander-in-chief taking a greater hit to his image in the Jewish state than in any other country in the world, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Confidence in Obama slipped in Israel from 71% in 2014 to 49% in 2015, while half of Israelis said they have no confidence in the president’s leadership in international affairs, according to the 2015 Spring Pew Global Attitudes Survey.
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By Isi Leibler

The fierce reactions to Kulanu MK and former Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren’s evaluation of the Obama administration in his new book, and in particular to three articles he penned titled “How Obama abandoned Israel,” “Why Obama is wrong about Iran being ‘rational’ on nukes” and “How Obama opened his heart to the ‘Muslim world,’” were predictable. He has enraged the administration, created enormous anxiety and polarized a situation within the American Jewish community.
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T. Belman. Remember “Israelis” means all Israelis and not just Jews. What is most surprising is that only 21% of Israelis support the Saudi Plan which advocates ’67 lines plus swaps. This is much fewer that the number that supports the TSS in general. Only 56% of Palestinians support it. I wonder why its so low.

Poll finds 10% drop in support for dividing country, majority oppose evacuation of Jews; 56% of Palestinians think they’ll be expelled.

21% of the Israelis and 52% of the Palestinians support the Saudi peace plan, 67% of the Israelis and 44% of the Palestinians oppose it.

By Uzi Baruch, INN

Only 51% of Israelis – down from 61% last year – support the “two-state solution” by which the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria would be turned into an Arab state, according to a new poll conducted in early June.
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Israel Confronts Crisis

If you analyze the news for the most serious problems affecting the planet, they would include disease, hunger, drought, natural disasters and terrorism.  Israel’s superb work to combat these menaces deserves far more publicity.  Here are some recent examples.

The risk of contracting cancer is now estimated at 1 in 2, which puts the deadly disease firmly into the crisis category.  Weizmann scientists have just developed a triple-effect treatment to kill lung cancer cells and prevent them from returning.  The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has designed a tiny antenna that can be inserted into the stomach to detect and treat early-stage gastric tumors too small to be treated by current methods.  Meanwhile, Israel’s VBL Therapeutics reported interim results from its Phase 2 trials of its VB-111 advanced ovarian cancer treatment that reduced tumor size by at least 50% and also extended the survival of patients with aggressive brain cancer (glioblastoma).  And finally, let’s hear it for Israel Prize laureate Dr. Haim (Howard) Cedar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem whose work to detect wrongly reproduced instructions in the DNA may one day not merely cure, but actually prevent cancer from forming. Read more…

By Ted Belman. The author of this article was at pains to set the historical record straight and she did a good job of it. But for me, she was too easy on Fiorina, who she described as simply being deceived by Islam. I don’t believe it for a moment just as I didn’t believe that Pres Obama was deceived by Islam when he made his Cairo speech in 2009 or when president Bush started the ball rolling with his “Islam is Peace” speech just after 9-11..

The later two speeches, including their falsification of history, were politically motivated. Bush did not want to point the finger at Saudi Arabia or Islam as being culpable because he would then have to declare war on them. Obama on the other hand wanted to launch his new policy of embracing the Muslim Brotherhood and Islam so he had to make them more acceptable to Americans.

Fiorina wanted to make a point of loving Muslims and Islam so that her company would not suffer their anger at home or abroad where its business interests were extensive.

We must not tolerate leadership like this that lies to us for their ulterior motives and who are unwilling to stand up to Islam.

By Tabitha Korol

Carly Fiorina, a current contender for the Republican nominee for President, delivered a speech during her tenure as CEO of Hewlitt-Packard, in praise of Islam, a mere two weeks after the destruction of the WTC by Muslims

“There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world.”
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By Anne Bayefsky, Human Rights Voices, FOX NEWS

Arrest Benjamin Netanyahu and any other “suspected” Israeli war criminals wherever and whenever you can get your hands on them. That is the shocking bottom line of a scandalous report released today from the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The report emanates from a board of inquiry the Council created in the midst of the 2014 Gaza war. In legalese, the call to arrest Israelis either for trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC), or before any court in any country that the U.N. labels “fair,” reads like this:

The board “calls upon the international community … to support actively the work of the International Criminal Court in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory; to exercise universal jurisdiction to try international crimes in national courts; and to comply with extradition requests pertaining to suspects of such crimes to countries where they would face a fair trial.”
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By Diane Weber Bederman, CFP

I met Israel’s newly elected Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked at the offices of the Minister of Justice, a rather nondescript building, located in East Jerusalem. Her office is spacious but simply furnished. The wall behind her desk is filled with books. Her desk was clear except for some platters of vegetables and carafes of water for the many people she sees each day.

Minister Shaked is a secular member of a religious political party. She is both Ashkenazi and Iraqi. She has degrees in electrical engineering and computer science and worked at Texas instruments before entering politics in 2006. She is tall and slender and yes, beautiful. She has been attacked for her looks as if a woman blessed genetically with beauty cannot be intelligent. Photo-shopped images of Shaked as a Nazi have been posted on social media. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once compared her to Adolf Hitler. Minister Shaked is bright, beautiful and full of brawn. Borrowing a metaphor from football-she is a triple threat.
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By Joel Golovensky, JPOST

Israel is accused of shooting at United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) facilities in the Gaza Strip without making sufficient effort to avoid hurting innocent civilians encamped there. The Schabas-McGowan Davis report to be released on the 23rd of this month and soon to be leaked, will concentrate on proving these charges, while accusing the IDF of many more violations of international law.
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T. Belman.  It is no surprise that the UN found fault with the Mavi Marmara raid but it is quite surprising that it declared the blockade legal.  Now with the next flotilla challenge gearing up, a number of politicians have announced their intention to be on the ships.

As the confrontation heats up and everyone will be demanding that the blockade should be lifted, making Israel look bad, it is important to remember the BLOCKADE IS LEGAL.

I removed some unnecessary paragraphs in the NYT article below.

Obama also criticized Israel as being in the wrong.

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ETHAN BRONNER, NY TIMES, SEPT. 1, 2011

Israel’s 2010 raid on a Turkish-based flotilla in which nine passengers were killed has found that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is both legal and appropriate. But it said that the way Israeli forces boarded the vessels trying to break that blockade 15 months ago was excessive and unreasonable.

The report, expected to be released Friday, also found that when Israeli commandos boarded the main ship, they faced “organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers” and were therefore required to use force for their own protection. But the report called the force “excessive and unreasonable,” saying that the loss of life was unacceptable and that the Israeli military’s later treatment of passengers was abusive.

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[T. Belman. I highly recommend you read and distribute the Sovereignty Journal.]

Arutz Sheva

Days before the March 17 elections, the Women in Green (WiG) movement has published issue number five of its Sovereignty Journal, which features interviewswith right-wing politicians and thinkers in an attempt to shift the public discourse towards declaring sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.

The new issue, which will be distributed in 120,000 copies in Hebrew and English and can be requested from WiG, includes interviews with politicians Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud), Economics Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home), and Deputy Minister Ofir Akunis (Likud).

It also features interviews with the head of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) Itamar Marcus, Prof. Moshe Arens, Prof. Eliav Shochetman and other right-wing thinkers, in addition to articles by Attorney Dafna Netanyahu and Jerusalem Post editor Caroline Glick.
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By Don Calabrese, CFP

Hillary Clinton could save us all a lot of time by simply issuing the following statement:

You’re wasting your time asking me my position on anything. I have no idea. Regardless of what I’ve ever said or done in the past, or what I may say today, what I may actually do in the future depends entirely on how I perceive my own self-interest at that moment. And since I have no idea what the situation might be if and when I have to take an action on anything, I have no idea what I might do. So, in answer to your question: I don’t know. And stop asking me.

That would be an honest answer, and it would apply to absolutely any issue. Witness her kinda-sorta-but-we’ll-see reversal on the Obama trade bill – the very same trade bill she supported as Secretary of State when doing so seemed to present no barriers to her presidential ambitions:
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